As It Should Be
by Miss Pookamonga
Summary: She can't change his past. But maybe, just maybe, she can change his future. Oneshot, SPOILERS for "Into the Black."


_Dear Readers,_

_OMG YES! I have FINALLY returned to the fanfic world! I turned into a lurker the past few months (long story short, it's been, overall, chaos). But at LAST I forced myself to get back into writing mode after finishing up season 3, and boy am I happy I overcame my laziness. It feels so good to write again. Like Nikola said, "I'm back, baby!" Oh yeah! LOL. Sorry for taking so long to resurrect myself. Hopefully the end of this fic makes up for it._

_Anyway, after seeing "Into the Black," I got this idea. Well, it sort of stemmed from lastrequest's GW comment about present!Helen hooking up with past!Niko and I thought it went a bit too far since that'd be torture for poor Niko to have that and then be utterly rejected by past!Helen afterwards xD So I compromised and this is the result. I hope you like. I will admit it does take some inspiration from a few other lovely post-ITB fics that have been posted on here. _

_Soo...that's pretty much it. I've missed being actively on here! I'm so glad Helen went all "screw you" in John's face (FINALLY!) in ITB so I'd get too excited to NOT write a fic. Gah! I'll shut up now. Love you all :)_

_Best regards from a Tesla-obsessed bookworm,_

_Miss Pookamonga ;P aka "Mimzy"_

_PS: I totally forgot to mention they're at his lab in Colorado, not New York, but I'm too lazy to add it in and it doesn't really matter anyway. :P  
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><p><strong>As It Should Be<strong>

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><p>The minute she sees his face, everything changes.<p>

She shouldn't be here, lurking inside his lab like a common stalker. But ever since she put a stop to Adam's chaos months ago, her every waking moment has been consumed with an inexplicable obsession with finding _him. _She couldn't find a way to get home, back to the present time – well, _her _present time – so the only other thing she could think to do was travel halfway across the world to find solace in the one man she has so long overlooked.

And although she has had no inkling of what to do upon reaching him, now that's she's here, having charmed her way past the secretaries, and is gazing upon his weary sleeping form, she knows that she's done the right thing.

Because when she rests her eyes on his beautiful face, she _finally_ knows, without a single ounce of doubt, exactly how she feels.

She creeps toward him quietly, visually tracing the lines on his brow and beneath his eyes. Her heart swells in pity as she reads the exhaustion etched upon his pale skin, and for a moment she's tempted to take his chin in her hands and wake him with the heart-stopping kiss he's deserved for more than a century. In fact, she's tempted to change everything – to put an end to his lonely desperation right here and now by gathering his hollow shell of a body in her arms and promising her whole life to him as she should've done in the first place. But the sting of Adam's folly brings her back to her senses, and sadly, she lets the overwhelming desire pass. When she makes it back to her own time – _if_ she does – she can make amends. But not here, not now. However much he needs the confirmation of her love, she can't risk any more lives.

But that doesn't stop her from feeling a sharp pang of anguish when he suddenly winces and whimpers her name helplessly, twitching restlessly in his sleep. A hot tear wells up in her eye and begins rolling down her cheek, followed by a steady stream trickling down her skin. Oh, God, how could she have been so _blind_? He has always loved her unconditionally, never letting his heart stray from her, having sacrificed every chance to be with her for her own perceived happiness. What in God's name ever barred her from seeing his unrelenting devotion? Even in his dreams he's wanted nothing more than to protect her.

"Helen, no…he'll hurt you again…don't!" he wails, jerking wildly in his chair, his features contorting gruesomely as if he is in physical pain.

At that, she can no longer contain herself and she rushes to his side, kneeling next to him and cradling his face in her hands. The tears are now practically drowning her, and she has to fight to keep herself from sobbing aloud. "Oh, Nikola," she croaks, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" She threads her fingers through his soft hair and strokes it tenderly, like she used to do at Oxford, before the Five. "I'm _never_ going back to him. _Ever._ I see what he is now and I'm not going to let him hurt me anymore," she whispers fervently.

If only he could hear her. If only she could give him _some _bit of consolation in his despair. She can't change the past no matter how much she aches to, but he deserves a tiny sliver of hope for the future. Suddenly, in the midst of her tears, an idea strikes her. It's probably foolish and maybe somewhat risky, but she decides that she _must_ carry it out for his sake. It's the least she can do.

She brings her hands forward to cup his face again and gently shakes him. "Nikola, Nikola," she calls softly.

At first, he doesn't respond, but after a few more shakes, he awakes, groggily blinking his half-opened eyelids in confusion.

"He…he…Helen?"

Her heart breaks at how small and vulnerable his voice sounds. It's the voice of a scared little boy in Smiljan, not the proud voice of a confident and successful inventor. She smiles sadly at him through her tears and gently strokes his cheek with her thumb.

"Yes, it's me."

He blinks some more and attempts to lift his head off the work table. "You…not here…London…your hair…different…this…not real?" he manages to slur, sleep still weighing heavily on his tongue.

She doesn't answer his question. Instead, she straightens his head in her hands and grips his face more tightly as she fails to fight back more tears. She opens her mouth to say something but only a strangled silence emerges before she collapses into tiny sobs.

"Stop. N-no. Don't…cry," he whispers gently, reaching towards her and brushing a tear away with his thumb.

The gesture only makes her cry even harder. He's half-asleep and for all he knows, she's not really there, but yet he's _still_ trying to comfort her. Oh God, if only she could change this damn timeline and spare him so many years of torture…

"Oh, Nikola," is all she can say for a while until her tears begin to wane and she finally regains her composure.

"Helen…" he croaks after she has calmed somewhat, "why…what—"

"There's something I need to ask of you," she interrupts, her voice barely making a sound.

"Anything…for you," he replies, his blue eyes unmistakably laden with irrepressible love for her.

She nearly chokes on her next words, but she manages to continue. "I need you to promise me something." She gives his head another little shake for emphasis.

"All right."

She takes a deep breath and gazes straight into those beautiful eyes without flinching. "Promise me," she says with determination, shaking his head again, "promise me that you'll never give up on me."

His brow furrows. "Wha—"

"Promise me, Nikola," she begs through a fresh wave of tears, continuing to shake his face in her hands. "P-promise me that no matter _how _many times I reject you or hurt you, you will _never _give up on me. Because I _swear _to you one day I _will _choose _you_. I _will_."

She's sobbing again, this time harder than before, and she can hardly see his face through the tears clouding her vision. But she can see him well enough to know that he nods his head slowly in response before whispering, "I promise, my love. I promise."

She sniffles and wipes some of her tears away with the back of her hands before returning them to his face. "Oh, Niko," she murmurs. And then, although she knows she probably shouldn't, she leans in and presses her lips to his in a brief, soft kiss. It lasts for only a split second, but in that short time, she can tell just how _right_ it feels to have his lips against hers. It takes all her willpower to force herself to pull away.

When she does, he looks half-shocked, half-intoxicated, his mouth quirked in a lopsided grin. "I love…" And then he trails off as his eyelids droop and he drifts back to sleep.

She stares at him for another few seconds before reluctantly extricating her hands from his face and standing up from the floor. Her heart aches at the thought of leaving him, but she's done all she can do. When he wakes in the morning her visit will have been nothing more than a passing dream. All she can hope for is that he will keep that dream in his memory forever and never let it go.

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><p>She's never able to find a way to jump forward in time, so she finds herself forced to relive the past in hiding. She keeps to the shadows, mostly avoiding anyone she knows and loves so as not to be tempted to interfere. Sometimes she gives in and lends a helping hand every once in a while – but it is always from a distance and always so subtle that the benefactors never suspect a thing. She spends the decades in utter solitude, waiting for the day when she can rejoin her own timeline. It's not always easy, nor is it painless, but somehow she is able to survive. Until that day finally comes and everything falls into place once again.<p>

He's there when she returns home exhausted from enduring a second life. When she is informed of the invasions she doesn't think she has the stamina to handle another crisis, but one glance at the love in his eyes and she knows that with him by her side, she can conquer anything. The battles take nearly a year to come to a conclusion, and not all the results are as peaceful as she's hoped for. But they miraculously manage to quell yet another disaster and save the world again, so to speak, and soon, everything returns to normal – or as close to normal as it can be.

She finds him sitting on the battlements of the North Tower one night, exactly a year after the day she followed Adam back in time. When she joins him, he's uncharacteristically silent, but it's the kind of silence that speaks more words than words themselves. Sometime into the night, she takes his hand in hers and chances a glimpse at his eyes. And somehow, she can see the memory of his "dream" swimming in them, still waiting, still hoping to be fulfilled.

It is then that she lets her inhibitions go. With a squeeze of his hand and a kiss to his cheek, she looks him squarely in the eye and finally utters them - those three sacred words he has waited and yearned for two lifetimes to hear.

And at last, all is as it should be.

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><p><strong>FINIS<strong>


End file.
